Unity scraps runtime fee, hikes subscriptions instead
Unity has decided to scrap its hated runtime fees and return to the old ways of billing, along with making some considerable price hikes.
Almost a year to the day since the cross-platform game engine maker embarked on its failed mission to make developers pay every time a customer installed their titles, CEO Matt Bromberg said the software house was reversing course “effective immediately” and returning to seat-based billing.
“After deep consultation with our community, customers, and partners, we’ve made the decision to cancel the Runtime Fee,” Bromberg said. “We want to deliver value at a fair price in the right way so that you will continue to feel comfortable building your business over the long term with Unity.”
That “fair price” doesn’t mean Unity doesn’t still want to recoup its losses, so Unity Pro customers can expect to see an eight percent subscription price increase over old per-seat prices, bringing the current total to $2,200 annually per seat when pricing changes take effect at the beginning of 2025.
Similar to changes proposed to appease customers upset when the runtime fees were announced last year, Unity is also planning to increase the threshold at which point a Unity Personal customer has to upgrade to Pro, doubling it to $200,000 of annual revenue or funding.
Unity Enterprise customers, whom Bromberg said were the largest segment of the platform’s users, are being stuck with most of the bill and will be facing a 25 percent price hike. All Unity customers who make more than $25 million annually are required to pay for an Enterprise plan, and default pricing isn’t indicated. When we asked Unity, they didn’t share the specific pricing details.
The game engine maker also intends to honor the other big agreement it made after the beginning of the runtime fee-asco: Licenses agreed upon when purchasing a specific version of Unity will remain valid, and new agreements will not be applied retroactively to older products.
“You may continue using your current version of the software under the previously agreed terms as long as you keep using that version,” Bromberg noted.
How we got here
El Reg sibling site DevClass reported news that Unity was adopting runtime fees on September 13, 2023, with plans for the fee to take effect on January 1, 2024.
As mentioned above, it would charge developers any time a buyer of their games downloaded it, with a top rate of $0.20 per install. Those fees would be assessed based on a minimum revenue threshold over the previous 12-month period, or when developers exceeded a lifetime installation threshold.
Unity Personal and Plus users would have had to begin paying the fee after reaching just $200,000 in revenue or two hundred thousand lifetime downloads, while Pro and Enterprise customers were given a $1 million earnings and a million download barrier.
The Unity developer community quickly pushed back, prompting the company to backtrack just days after the fee announcement. The changes centered on adjusting thresholds and no longer making new software licenses and terms apply to older releases.
Not long after that, Unity’s then CEO and board chair John Riccitiello suddenly decided to retire.
Olive-branch-bearer Bromberg took over as head of Unity in May after previous leadership positions at Electronic Arts, Zynga, and Fitbit, with board member Roelof Botha praising his “customer-first mindset” and “deep understanding of the dynamic gaming industry.”
In his own words, Bromberg said Unity has spent its two decades of existence trying to democratize game development by bringing its products to even the smallest designers – a company philosophy that might have been lost of late.
“We can’t pursue that mission in conflict with our customers; at its heart, it must be a partnership built on trust,” the Unity CEO said.
“Canceling the Runtime Fee for games and instituting these pricing changes will allow us to continue investing to improve game development for everyone while also being better partners,” Bromberg added. ®